Journalist: Hero and victim not the only choices for people with disabilities
February 19th, 2008Roy Peter Clark, writing on the website of the Poynter Institute, takes the media to task for its uncritical coverage of the case of Brian Sterner. A deputy sheriff last week dumped Sterner out of his wheelchair onto the floor in a Florida jail. Widespread web distribution of a security camera video of the incident led to a felony charge against the deputy, who has since resigned, and an appearance by Sterner on the Today show.
Clark wonders why there has been no detailed analysis of the allegations that caused Sterner to be jailed in the first place, and calls for a more “people first” coverage of people with disabilities. An excerpt:
Sterner wound up in jail after his specially equipped van was stopped for what appeared to be erratic driving. This aspect of the case — whether or not the driver was a danger to others — has received little attention.
… I’m sure that abuse of the disabled is a common and terrible transgression, which should be punished in proportion to the crime. But the emotional response in this case — even though the victim proved able enough to fly to New York and appear on the Today Show — suggests a kind of public sentimentality that cannot be good in the long term for persons with disabilities.
… We in the news media, as always, are part of the problem. Until we portray disabled citizens in ways that have nothing to do with their disabilities, we will stand guilty of a great distorting cliche of vision: that the disabled are too vulnerable to be criticized.
… People in wheelchairs are people first. That means that — just like the rest of us — they are blessed and damned by the contradictory burdens of the human condition. There is so much more to all of us than the simple dichotomy of hero and victim.
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